Cambria Politico - The Political Blog

There’s a slight smell of 1978 wafting around the Assembly nowadays.

That was the time when the government headed by the MP for Cardiff South East launched a campaign to convince voters to vote-yes to the formation of a Welsh Assembly.

Except that they didn’t really set up a campaign.

And when the battle began, the government didn’t [...]

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When the Western Mail runs a story quoting a “senior Welsh Tory” questioning whether party centrist Nick Bourne should “stay on as leader”, one must wonder how close that individual is to the self-styled True Wales group led by a descendant of Owain Glyndwr.

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Edwina Hart took the weekly Assembly cabinet press briefing like she was a negotiator for the Banking, Finance and Insurance Union (her previous employer) scattering the terrified ranks of banking employers tied up in the current world financial crisis.

Bluntly, she was convinced today she was right, and possessed the answers - which meant she charged [...]

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We all know the Western Mail (otherwise Llais y Sais) is losing readers, and that their reporters sometimes can’t find stories (after all, it is still the “silly season“).

But today’s effort on the future leadership of the Welsh Labour Party in the wake of Rhodri Morgan is peculiarly off-centre.

So peculiarly off-centre that it’s worth examining, [...]

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Jane Davidson gave her First-Minster impression today. And very realistic it seemed.

She gave a long and spirited exposition at the weekly Cabinet briefing for the press on everything she and her environment department were planning this week, explaining that she had a “very full” week ahead.

We were told about flooding, keeping Wales tidy, cycling, walking, [...]

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So Rhodri Morgan is not computer-literate.

Quite an admission for one of the top brains in the Assembly.

I somehow don’t quite believe it. I’m sure he knows full well how to find agendas for cabinet meetings on the intranet - that is the internet which is restricted to AMs, and tells a little of [...]

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Almost caught out by the bell…because it didn’t ring.

We all know that Rhodri Morgan, First Minister, ensures that he keeps himself fit. But not often can we see him taking advantage of that fitness.

Sitting at a table in what is pejoratively sometimes called the Dungeon in the Senedd, outside the AMs’ entrance to the [...]

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It’s good to know that the Assembly government is putting both its name and its money behind good beer.

No surprise after Rhodri Morgan’s address to the CAMRA UK annual general meeting in Cardiff this month.

But which ministry is putting cash into the Great Welsh Beer and Cider Festival at its new venue of the [...]

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Real kings are proclaimed by the people, rather than announced by proclamation and heralded by trumpeters.
So it is in Wales. Rhodri Morgan told Camra (the real-ale society) AGM in Cardiff about the effusive welcome he received in a Cardiff Bay pub (the White Hart, which is hardly one where Seneddwyr imbibe) after he took over [...]

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It didn’t sound like a political message when Rhodri Morgan spoke to the Campaign for Real Ale’s UK AGM in Cardiff today.
He bewailed the lack of real ale (hand-pump stuff) in the Valleys, and pointed out that if drinkers wanted something worth imbibing, instead of the “fizzy beers generally found up there, they had [...]

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